Working Smart

Blackberry Program Switcher

Once a month, Keith Gibbons, our IT Telecom Technician, sends all of our Blackberry users a “Tip of the Month.” These are always helpful and they are a good reminder. But as a semi-geek myself, it’s rare for me to discover a completely new tip. However, this month Keith came up with a great find. It’s called The Program Switcher.

While holding down the ALT key, press the escape key to bring up the application chooser. (Keep holding the ALT key) Press the escape key until the desired program is highlighted. Release the ALT and you will jump to the chosen application.

When will I use this, you say? Let's say you are on a call on the bb and the party asks if you are available for a meeting next Tuesday. Press ALT/escape, scroll to calendar and you can tell if you are free. You can even go ahead and book the meeting! IF the app you wish to choose does not show on the app chooser ribbon, select the Home icon, then scroll normally to the desired app.

A Better Voice Mail Greeting

I change my voice mail greeting everyday, so that it references the current day. Why? Because I want people to know that I am on top of my messages and their message is important to me.

Whenever I discover a recurring activity like this, I try to “template” the process. By this I mean that I try to find a solution that represents the optimal way for me to perform the activity. This is what Michael Gerber in his must-read book The E-Myth calls “working on your business rather than simply working in your business.” I then document the process (which is also a template) and insert it into my “personal procedure manual.” This makes it very easy to pass the procedure along or train someone else. From time to time, I tweak the procedure to improve it.

To template the “change my voice mail greeting” procedure, I first automated the process. I started by programming into my cell phone my voice mail telephone number and then all the keystrokes necessary to log in and initiate the “change your greeting” feature. I was able to reduce the sequence of twenty-seven keystrokes to two: I press the speed key to dial my voice mail number once, then, once I'm connected, I press a key to initiate the log-in process.

Next, I wrote a simple phone greeting script that I could reuse each day. It goes like this:

Hi, you’ve reached the voice mailbox of Mike Hyatt. Please note you can bypass this message at any time by pressing “1”. Today is [day of week], [date].

• I am in the office, but I’m either on my phone or away from my desk;
• I am in the office but will be in meetings all day;
• I am out of the office on business; or
• I am out of the office on vacation.

However, your call is very important to me. If you will leave a message, I will call you back at my first opportunity. If you need immediate assistance, press press zero-pound to speak to my assistant, Vicki Parr. Thanks for calling.

Finally, I memorized the script, using the first bullet point, since that is the one I use most often. This enables me to change my voice mail message first thing in the morning, while I am driving to work. I simply recite it form memory. By now, I could do it in my sleep.